Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Lucy and Desi recreate their sitcom personas for this sketch tailored specifically for a Sullivan appearance. The TV critics of the day could not, for the life of them, figure out how Ed Sullivan could seem so casual and relaxed when he was playing himself in a sketch but be so wooden when he was himself. It's a whole lot of fun seeing Ed out of his element.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Now I am no John Denver fan - but I love any old footage of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson! You can wait until this video loads fully and then cut to the five minute mark for the interview if you can't stomach the music.

This footage has been on YouTube forever, but perhaps someone out there hasn't seen it yet. It's too bad Zappa is so unresponsive in this interview, I guess he hadn't mastered his television persona yet (as a disastarous stint hosting Saturday Night Live later proved). Eventually he would make incredible arguments on television on more serious panel shows as in this oft-viewed clip on Crossfire or this debate moderated by Charlie Rose or my all-time favorite, this incongruous booking on a Joan Lunden mother's day special - part one & part two!

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Early on HBO wasn't granting stand-up specials to the up and comers, they were handing them out to the fully established and the old. Pat Cooper, Totie Fields, Norm Crosby, Buddy Hackett and here ... Redd Foxx.

About Me

My long awaited book about comedy will be published by Grove Atlantic in 2015.
Longtime contributor to WFMU and CBC. Cited by Vanity Fair, GQ, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The Onion, Salon, Slate, Atlantic Monthly, BoingBoing, Comedy Central, Dangerous Minds, WTF with Marc Maron, The New York Times, Vice etc.